Press Release:
Privacy expert to discuss PATRIOT Act

February 2004

When you pass a toll booth and toss in a quarter, can that be reported to
law enforcement? Can your cell phone records be used to track where you
are travelling? If you file for bankruptcy, could your financial
records become part of court documents available on the Internet?

The answer to all these questions is yes. The rise of sophisticated data
measurement tools have made it possible. The passage of the PATRIOT
Act has raised additional concerns about privacy.

On March 1, attorney David Sobel
will speak about the influence of
technology and the PATRIOT Act on records policy, particularly with
regard to colleges and universities. His speech at the ASU Memorial Union at 6
p.m. will open ECURE 2004, an international conference on
electronic records in higher education. The conference will be held March
1-3 on the ASU
campus.

In his last appearance at ASU
in 2002, Sobel reported that the problems
of information management were apparent even before the war on
terrorism began. Records "create their own market" and society produces
more data than it can measure and evaluate, he said.

Sobel is general counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center in
Washington D.C., a non-profit research organization. Sobel was co-
counsel in Reno v. ACLU,
the successful constitutional challenge to the
Communications Decency Act. He has litigated and participated in many
other cases concerning issues such as privacy, free expression, electronic
surveillance, and the disclosure of government documents.

Registration for the conference is required to attend the event. For more
information on Sobel's speech and the ECURE conference agenda, see www.asu.edu/ecure/.